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Why is there copyright on the Bible?The most prominent reasons for copyright on any published work are firstly to protect the integrity of the text and, secondly, to protect the rights of the copyright holder.

Copyright on the Bible helps to protect the integrity of the text. In line with the South African copyright law:

No person may make changes to the text of the Bible in order to support his, or her, personal theology, or other opinions.

No person may publish text from the Bible, which has been translated from the original languages by the Bible Society at great cost, without permission and to make a profit.

The Bible Society of South Africa has also established contracts with the copyright holders of some English Bibles, and must, therefore, pay copyright fees on every such copy that is published.

All translations of the Bible in Afrikaans (1933/1953, 1983/1992 and Die Bybel vir almal) are protected by copyright, and are freely available for reading purposes on the website www.bybel.co.za.

Translations of the isiNdebele, Sepedi, Sesotho, Siswati, Setswana, Xitsonga, isiXhosa and isiZulu Bibles are protected by copyright, and are freely available for reading purposes on the website www.bibles.co.za.

The cost of copyright permission is determined for each individual publication. The cost is decided on the grounds of the number of scriptural passages that are quoted, as well as the percentage of the product that consists of scriptural quotes. The copyright fees are based, thereafter, on the selling price of the specific publication.

The Bible Society of South Africa gladly offers permission to authors and publishers to quote up to five hundred (500) verses from the Bible in any format (written, visual, electronic, or audio). The quoted verses may not, however, exceed fifty percent (50%) of a complete book of any of the Bible, or more than twenty-five percent (25%) of the total text in which they are quoted, otherwise permission must be secured in advance. Copyright must still, however, be acknowledged on the verso page of the publication.

Congregational use of Bible quotations has to do with the normal use of the Bible. Copyright makes provision for the reasonable use of quotations, and it is in no way the aim of the Bible Society to restrict the normal use of the Bible.

As soon as Bible quotations are used in a publication which leads to the commercial gain of the publisher, written permission must be obtained from the Bible Society, and the necessary copyright acknowledgement granted.